Hi everyone, Its been a little while since I posted but finally have the time having arrived in Darwin a few days ago. To keep it easy i will just put up some of the better photos from the last month and caption them. I'm updating my blog too at the moment so there will be more details for those of you that are interested:) this post covers from the town of broome in Western Australia to Darwin..with a nice trip along the Gibb river road...an old beef road...700km of corrugated road! nice!

I've covered about 4000km on the bike here in australia and have really reached barra country now. the plan is to head out to kakadu national park for a few weeks and annoy some of the barra! so i will report when back!
all the best, hope the fish are biting in India for you guys,

Scott

80 mile beach and a pretty nice sunset. I was convinced a fish would nail my lure but after 3 hours i gave up and settled for a good sunset instead!

cable beach in broome. Saw some guys catching some pretty decent whiting from the rocky area. Set off towards willare road bridge a little later and battled bad head winds for two days to get there.

One of the first big boab trees i found. they made great spots to rest out of the midday sun.

First crocy i saw..10km from the fitzroy river. seemed to be suffering from a bad case of heatstroke!

After 3 hours of casting and running up and down steep banks a small barra nailled my lure 3 times in a split second but didn't hook up. i was starting to wonder whether the barra was a myth..then this little beauty nailed the lure! ah and relax!! two more had a go but didn't hook up. 2.5 days of hard fishing for one small barra..worth it as it was my first australian barra!

This was my campsite on the fitzroy..about 6 km from the main road. a nice freshwater croc chose to sunbathe on the beach just below my tent.

crocodile eyeballing me! didn't see any salties..only about 15 freshies who had probably eaten all the barra!

fitzroy river in the evening

Cycling Gibb river road. managed to bust out 100 kays a day and get from derby to kunnunarra in just under 8 days..would like to have spent longer but i only had some much food packed. some kind people gave me a few goodies along the way which helped.

early morning on the gibb

pushing the bike through a sandy area

hmm still a long way to go. At this point i was pretty excited about the can of coke i planned to buy at mt barnett! had been thinking about it for the last 5 hours!

completely stuffed after 100km of corrugations. think i was gathering the energy to make a cup of tea!

Dingo that followed me down the road for a few kays and then tried to steal my map. guess the poor bugger was lost?

a lovely spot where apparently there was no camping. unfortunately i was so tired i had no choice but to sleep there.

another beautiful spot on the gibb

durack river crossing..it was 10 am, 60km ridden and i'd just been given a cold can of beer. Not really a good idea and it meant the next hour was pretty interesting.

Pentecost river crossing. Everyone warned me about crocs but upon arrival i figured that the stream of 4wds would have scared them all away. it was pretty shallow too. Being a fisherman my other logic was match the hatch..with so may prados and landcruisers to feet on why would a croc want a skinny cyclist? I carried half my bags accross and then was wading back for the rest when a 'kimberly wild' bus pulled up and all the people climbed off and started taking photos of me! just what i wasn't in the mood for. i had already had my photo taken 15000 times and was getting a little bored of it. the khaki clad tour guide marched over and said " you're not going to ride that thing across are you?" i was a bit put out to her refering to my bike as a 'thing' but managed to keep my cool and reply that no i was going to carry it across. at that point in an almost hysterical voice she said " what about the crocodiles" so i replied that we had an understading as i put the bike on my shoulder and marched off across the river! think she must have been building up the croc thing to all her tourists and i put a spanner in the works! the funniest bit was that as i walked across my arse was hanging out as my shorts were completely torn and in pieces! well at least the tourists were entertained and got some good photos!

how i began to love corrugations. the last 150km was stony and fully corrugated. often i could ony make between 6-10km/h so put in long days of 10 hours on the bike.

Not a bad camping spot apart from i didn't realise that the hawk that was nesting in the tree was going to drop blood all over my nice white tent! drat!

I was on the gibb in the school holidays and there seemed to some sort of gibb river road challenge on. most people seemed to be a rush to get somewhere which was a shame as they were missing alot travelling at 100kmh. the fact that they showered me with stones and dust didn't help either. many people snapped photos of me as they sped past. it was a shame they didn't have the time to stop and have a chat:)

This Goanna demonstrates the dangers of drinking too much beer.

A nice sunset shot

an inspiring find at my fishing spot on the ord river

probably my worst nightmare!!

caught this in the ord river...anyone know what species it is?

i went for a recce on the Ord and found a nice looking pool. upon closer inspection i saw loads of little orange eyes look up at me..heaps and heaps of small barra were hanging about intercepting morsels brought in by the current. went back in the early morning and got 13 barra and 21 tapon in a couple of hours. great session..nothing big but plenty of acrobatics and non stop action until the sun came up and the feeding tailed off

one of the tarpon that nailed a silver metal.

throwing lures on the ord! good fun..just wish i had more small lures.

On the way to Katherine from Kununurra. just taking it easy trying to clock 120km a day. resting during the heat of midday.

Camping in the NT. At three in the morning a bull arrived and decided to stand ten metres from my tent and bellow his heart out. I was lying inside praying he didn't get any funny ideas. I had a vision of him mounting my tent in a desperation as no cows seemed to be nearby.

barra seem to be everywhere in the NT

resting up out of the midday sun under a bridge. Best spot as no trees give enough shade for long

I stopped on the king river and after a while gathered the energy for a fish. after a few casts i saw something fishy going on and let the lure sit on the surface after the retrieve. this little sooty grunter suddenly came up and smashed the static lure hard and unluckily for himself got a hook caught in his mouth! promising start!

After just a few more casts i saw a good fish race out of the snags and nail the lure. no hook up unfortunately..fired me up tho and soon a barra of around 2kg grabbed the lure and proceeded to jump about the river which brought a smile tto my face. didn't manage to get a photo as it did the houdini on me was i unhooked it. next one which was bigger put up a great fight but unfortunately also jumped back in when i was cleaning the dirt from it. so only this crappy photo of a king barra

King river..which i had all to myself! Nice!

Earlier in the day i noticed two cans of VB neatly placed by the side of the road. Of course i rescued them intending to give them a new life. Worked out well as when i got back from the barra fishing i could celebrate with two almost cold VB's!;) I also picked up a brand new roosta popper..replaced the one i lost back in kalbarri..

I noticed loads of orange eyes in the creek where i was camped in litchfield park..hmm had no bait so sacrificed a frog and sent it in on a line and got a few of these out. quite entertaining as it meant i could go to bed at 8 o'clock instead of 7.

Camped by this beautiful little creek in litchfield.. tea and a jaccuzzi! nice end to the day

Stopped on the finnis river for a 4 days and camped with two croc handlers. it was a particularly interesting few days as we shared a lot of stories and had some good fishing. I got some beautiful sooty grunters who really fight well. proper brute. a few small barra also got the lures. After hearing so much about crocs i was pretty nervous about fishing. we found one salty living quite a way up stream but it wasn't until the third day that we discovered a monster croc living close by. Deon had seen it at night when he was fetching water. so i went in the morning and sat by the river with my cup of coffee. sure enough after 5 minutes up he came just a little way down the river which is a mere piss puddle. unbelievable..the guys thought 15 feet and who was i to argue as they have worked with crocs for 12 years..sweet heart came from the same spot so maybe it was his son!

Nice sooty grunter

This is where i saw the big croc but unfortunately i had left my camera back at camp..doh!

Camp on the Finniss river..fridge, laptop, surround sound..bit of novelty for me! nice to have some company for a change.. just shame it wasn't two beautiful girls but hey ho!

Hats off to you sir, truly inspirational.
you're putting "somewhere down the crazy river" well into the shade.
put one of your monster balls each side of the saddle and keep pedalling casting and posting. a privelige to read of your adventures indeed.

Thanks for that great report Scott. We have now seen The Outback of Australia courtesy of your courage and enterprise. Loved the pictures and attached captions.I salute you mate!Really appreciate your love of travel and adventure. All Indian angler members are the better for it I'm sure.Thanks again.

Jaguar: I caught the Goanna an cut the beer can from his head. he seemed no worse for wear although maybe he had a slight hangover!

I'm off for two weeks of lure throwing in Kakadu national park tomorrow. Loaded the bike up today with 14 days worth of food, bought some new lures so am all set to hopefully empty the river and billabongs of fish!!!

target species will be Barramundi, Sooty grunter and Saratoga and possible another very interesting species that I have heard occurs there. I will report back in sept!!

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